


I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory... is this it?

by sarabande_onthecello



Series: time's up, wise up, eyes up [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Death, Fluff, Happily Ever After, Happy Ending, Multi, Reflection, Regret, Self-Reflection, What happens after Alex dies from Alex's POV, alex is a smol confused bean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7351687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarabande_onthecello/pseuds/sarabande_onthecello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens after Alex dies, or<br/>Alex talking to everyone who died before him, hanging out with other dead people, wishing he'd done some things differently, thinking about his life and his legacy... or<br/>Alex waking up in heaven and being very confused and then everyone that he loved who died takes care of him</p>
            </blockquote>





	I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory... is this it?

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a weird, whimsical thing... I'm not quite sure what I was thinking when I wrote it, honestly. But I like how it turned out. So here you are... enjoy!

When Alex wakes up, he can’t see. Everything is black.

 _“Open your eyes, Alex,”_ someone instructs gently, but he isn’t sure what’s in his head and what isn’t. He squints, eyelashes sticking together. There are blurry, strange figures surrounding him. One is leaning over him. He shuts his eyes again.

He wakes up slowly. It takes him ages of yawning, stretching, and rubbing his eyes. He can’t quite grasp time right now. Everything is just a little bit off.

When he opens his eyes for good, the world seems less bright. Like the sun is only glancing at him instead of glaring at him. He blinks several times, lifts his head a little to look around.

Immediately, one of the people from before - was it the same one? - come over to him. “Hey, Alex, how are you feeling?” they ask quietly, and he has the unnerving sense that _quiet_ does not come easily to the person. He looks at them more closely; the edges are hazy, but he can still make out the figure of -

Wait.

“John?” he whispers, voice cracking. He feels tears gathering in his eyes. They pull him up and hug him, hard. He can feel fingers pressing down on his back, lightly, just the palm and the fingertips. He can feel their whole body shaking as something wet lands on his cheek. He sticks his tongue out and catches it. It’s salty. _John is crying._

He hears, distantly, the mumbling repetition of his name: “Alex Alex Alex Alex Alex…” He raises his arms and wraps them around the other, squeezing hard. He hasn’t hugged John in a long time. He can’t remember, right now; his head is still foggy and he’s just very, very confused. It feels like twenty years. He says this aloud.

John laughs, quietly, and he hears it and feels it in his body and shivers, because it’s been too long since he last heard John’s gentle, delightful laugh that he always reserved for just Alex.

He thinks he’s getting a better grasp of time. It _has_ been twenty years, a little more than that, since he last saw John. What happened in between?

_Oh._

“John. Are you not… dead?”

John leans back on his heels, gripping Alex’s shoulders and studying him. “Do you not remember why you’re here?”

Alex searches his brain. He can’t remember, exactly. He just knows that it’s been a long time, and that something in the middle happened, and now he is here. He shakes his head. “Is Eliza here?”

With the name _Eliza_ , John’s face falls, but not in the way that it used to, out of sadness that they could never really be together. It falls as if he were anticipating some huge shock for Alex that will hurt him. Deeply.

So Alex grabs John’s arms, tightly, and asks _“Why am I here?”_

Just then, another of these - not people, exactly. They’re more like specters between ghosts and humans - swoops down on him and hugs him from behind. He twists in their grip. Shock.

“Mama?” In answer, she squeezes him harder. He starts to cry again, turns to hug her too.

“I haven’t seen you in so long, dearest. I’m so sorry I left. It was my time. But I’m proud of you. I’ve been watching you ever since I got here, we’re allowed to watch as long as we don’t interfere. I was so happy when you got off that godforsaken island. You wrote yourself a future, my son, you left a legacy. Though we need to talk about the Reynolds girl…”

He starts shivering, shoving her away weakly and curling up. _What is this place? Why am I here? What’s happening?_

A boy - no, young man, he thinks - bounds over to him. “Pops!” He’s strangely familiar. With his face comes a rush of emotions - regret, worry, and most of all love. Alex can’t take this right now. He buries his head in his hands. Block it out. Make it go away… His breathing is speeding up.

He hears slight hisses behind him. Isn’t sure why, but then he sees the newcomer nod and back away quietly, giving him space. John is speaking, behind him; he can’t make out the words, but the calming tone of it is helping, at least. He falls into the rhythmic cadences of his words and starts breathing more slowly.

Eventually, he picks his head up out of his hands. He makes grabby hands at John, which might be childish but achieves the desired goal: John scoots over and gathers him up, combing through his hair with his fingers slowly. He burrows his head into John’s neck, breathes in the scent that he knew so well before and is just getting reacquainted with.

He feels rather than hears the rumble of John’s voice and pays enough attention to understand what he’s saying. “You had a tough coming through, Alex. But you’re here now, and none of us can do anything about it even if we’d rather you stayed alive -” John’s voice cuts off as he starts sobbing again, silently. He hums into John’s body, conveying the message that _it’s okay, John, please continue_ and John inhales, exhales, inhales again and keeps going. “That was harder than most, from what I can tell. You weren’t awake for almost a day. Usually it takes a couple of hours, depending on how quickly the person dies and how peaceful it is.”

His mind goes quiet again. _Dies? I’m not… dead, am I?_

He turns around again to look at the teen that showed up earlier. “…Philip?” The boy nods, suddenly seeming smaller. He reaches out to him, and his _son_ comes forward and hugs him, tight, and he reciprocates it. How can he not? It’s his son, his son who had a future and should never have died. Vaguely, he notices a tremor, and he realizes it’s himself. He’s crying again. “Are you okay were you in pain how are you feeling I’m so sorry son so sorry you should never have died…” The words flood out of him, everything he ever wanted to say to Philip after he died and couldn’t.

A man walks over to him, from the same direction that Philip did, and he can tell this is a man he needs to listen to, a man who holds himself like a general.

“Hello, Alexander,” the man says, and he looks up to his President.

“Hello, sir,” he answers, and then the final gates break and he’s embracing everyone in sight and crying all over them, everywhere. He doesn’t even tell off George Washington for calling him _son_ one more time… this was the first time he’d heard it in years. He  missed it a little bit, having a father figure.

Hell, he’s missed all of them.

Eventually, he’s hugged them all enough - for now, at least - and his brain is back to whirring like it always has been, non-stop. He’s coming to terms with why he’s here, finally. “I’m dead, aren’t I,” he asks to the group, but it isn’t a question. He already knows the answer.

They all swarm him and hug him again, tight. He understands why, but he doesn’t need it. He’d walked into that duel with Burr knowing he might die and he did it anyway.

Some people have a greater sense of their own mortality.

What he most regrets is leaving the rest of his family behind. Small Angie, and Alex Jr., and James and John and William and Eliza and little Philip. He’d never be able to take part in watching them grow up, in helping them grow up. That was all on Eliza now.

Dear, sweet Eliza, who was probably in mourning right now, who didn’t deserve him one bit. He could admit that, now. He’d done some horrible things in his life, not least the entire Reynolds affair, and she really didn’t deserve it. She really was the best of wives and best of women, like he’d written.

And Angelica, who he’d kept a steady - not friendship, exactly, there was too much flirting in that. He remembered the commas that they’d used fondly - relationship with, despite her living across the ocean, and she’d probably be just as horrified as Eliza to hear of his death.

He’s mad at himself now, for not simply apologizing to Burr and letting it go, but he knows that were he faced with the same choice again, knowing he might die, he’d duel Burr again. Someday, he might forgive him, but the wounds - both physical and metaphorical - that Burr left are not easily forgotten.

***

He spends the next few years watching Earth life and his family. When they’re asleep, he goes to talk to John again, and his mother, and Philip, and Washington. He missed them so hard his gut aches from it. He and John fall back into their easy camaraderie, but they’re so much freer now and he’s still adjusting.

In heaven, people are free to love whomever they wish.

He could get used to this. He _will_ get used to this.

He starts holding hands with him, kissing him whenever he feels like it. He loves it, loves the freedom of his relationship, and is pretty sure that once Eliza comes through she’ll understand.

Maybe they can all be together. He thinks John would love Eliza.

He spends a long time talking to his mother. He explains the Reynolds affair to her, again, and bows his head in shame as she gives him a thorough scolding. He can still remember the most memorable phrases: _Do you even know what Eliza was going through, that poor girl? Did you stop to think? You can want to help poor, helpless girls with sob stories, but you don’t have_ affairs _with them! And then WRITE A NINETY-EIGHT PAGE PAMPHLET PROCLAIMING TO THE WHOLE WORLD HOW STUPID YOU ARE!_ He shudders. Though every part of him admits that he deserved it, really. He really didn’t deserve Eliza. And Maria… he’d heard that she’d gotten a divorce from James Reynolds, through Burr of all people. He’s glad for her, at least. He blames himself for the affair.

Philip is less cocky, less arrogant, in death. He doesn’t mind spending time with his father, looks up to him unashamedly. He usually goes to the university they have nearby. Even here, people started schools. Teaching is what some people love, and they spend their time doing that. He’s happy that Philip is learning still, at least. He didn’t throw away his life completely when he threw away his shot. Alex blames himself for that as well, that he told Philip to do so. His son had had a whole life in front of him. If only… he doesn’t know what he wishes would have happened.

But that’s in the past. Now is the present, and he’s spending it doing things he never could have done before. Apologizing, regretting, and loving.

He grows closer to George Washington, though he still doesn’t let him call him _son._ He doesn’t think he ever will. The word has too many connotations to his deserting father. He discovers that Washington’s wife, Martha, is witty and sweet at the same time, and he becomes good friends with her as well. She’d come through two years before he had.

The three of them spend a lot of time walking around aimlessly, talking. Their minds are well matched with each other as equals.

That’s another thing he likes: Equality. Here, no one is racist or sexist, and same-sex relationships are fine. People are allowed to wear whatever they like, though in some cases they are required to wear clothes. Most people wear clothes, usually, but some enjoy being free and open like they never were allowed to be. He’s still growing used to it, honestly, but he thinks it’s a good environment to be in. Freedom is in the air they breathe and the ground they walk on.

He likes it here, even though he misses his family.

***

Over time, more of his children come through, but he’s still waiting for Eliza.

She’s spent her remaining life dedicated to him. She’s spent years deciphering his writing - too late, he wishes he’d been more organized, if only to give his sweet wife an easier time - with Angelica helping her. Angelica comes through eventually, scolding him for dying the moment she wakes, and they resume their not-quite-flirting relationship. Both are just waiting for Eliza. They’re happy she’s still alive, but they miss her.

She squeezes every moment out of life that she can. Alex thinks she learned this, learned it after watching her son and her husband die, after learning that life is short and the journey was all that she had.

She talks to the veterans that Alex fought with, she speaks out against slavery, she pesters her children to write a biography of Alex. He and John laugh when they see his son burning their letters, muttering _“I cannot publish this”_ under his breath to himself. She raises money in D.C for Washington (who watches the entire thing like it’s something he doesn’t deserve, like he wasn’t the most important character in the founding of their nation), and she builds an orphanage. Eliza raises more children than she could ever possibly have, loving them each individually alongside her children. He thinks that maybe, maybe it’s because of him.

Eliza doesn’t only build a legacy for herself. She builds a legacy for him as well.

She’s the reason he doesn’t get forgotten in history.

And when the day comes that Eliza dies, when the day comes that she shows up lying on the ground, peacefully, when the day comes that she opens her eyes and sees Alex and Angelica bending over her, with her family surrounding her, Alex is ready to ease her into the new life just as John did for him.

***

Many more years pass.

One day in the future, Alex sees a man pick up a biography of him at an airport, read it, and begin writing.

One day in the future, Alex sees the man build a musical around him.

One day in the future, Alex sees his legacy solidified into the power of words and rhythms, and he turns right then and thanks Eliza.

He squeezes her hand, and then turns and squeezes John’s hand as well, and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me squeal and jump up and down, so there you are. Hope you liked it and congrats on making it all the way through. It's a weird story.
> 
> EDIT: I'm crying all of you are such nice people thank you so. didn't want to respond to comments because it'd spam them so!! know that I've read and cherish all of them. all y'all are lovely people


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